Colonel Michael Bishop’s (Mark Dacascos) last mission went FUBAR and was possibly — to use the title of this movie — sabotaged. He was the only survivor of something that government has disavowed. After healing, he’s been working as a bodyguard for billionaires, but when his clients start getting killed off, he realizes that the same operative, Sherwood (Tony Todd), that killed his team and is now coming after him.
This was directed by Tibor Takács (The Gate) — who made four movies with Dacascos — and was a mid 90s direct to video film that you’d find in the action section. It also has Carrie-Ann Moss as FBI special agent Louise Castle, John Neville (Baron Munchausen!) as Bishop’s handler Professor Follenfant and Graham Greene as Castle’s boss Tollander.
Bishop and Castle are named for chess pieces and, as you can easily follow, are being manipulated like the very same pieces. At least their names aren’t Pawn and Pawn. Dacascos is athletic, the bad guys are suitably bad — Todd is always great no matter the material — and revenge is achieved in the most splattery way possible. Back in 1996, this would have been in your five nights for five bucks stack. Today, it can be on the shelf of your collection.
The MVD blu ray release of this movie has extras including new interviews with Mark Dacascos and Tony Todd, a trailer real of Dacascos movies, double-sided artwork and a collectible mini-poster. You can get it from MVD.
Director Chun-Ku Lu (Holy Flame of the Martial World) is here to tell us the story of Yun Fei Yang (Norman Chui), an orphan who is given the worst tasks at Wudang, a martial arts school. Every privileged student abuses him, but he remains there, studying and working on his kung fu when he isn’t being treated like trash. There’s a real problem, however, as the rival Wu Di school and their best fighter, Kung Suen Wang (Meng Lo), is coming back to duel the school’s master swordsman Qing Song (Jung Wang) after having already defeated him twice.
Yun Fei Yang also is in love with the daughter — Fang Er (Yeung Jing-Jing) — of the leader of the school, Chief Dugu (Alex Man Chi-Leung), who has left for two years. As Dugu rests as a tavern, he’s attacked by four killers — Wind (Yuen Tak), Thunder (Wong Lik), Rain (Yuen Qiu) and Lightning (Kwan Fung), in case you ever wondered if John Carpenter watched these movies — and is saved by Fu Yu Shu. Yet after he’s attacked a second time, Yun Fei Yang is blamed and the school starts to tear itself to pieces A new master shows up, Fu Yu Xue (Tony Liu), and he soon steals away the school.
Yun Fei Yang starts to train with a stranger — Shen Man Jiun (Chan Si-Gaai) — and begins to master the signature style of the school, the Silkworm, all while running for the law, who thinks that he is a murderer. Yet despite the odds being against this “bastard,” the only way the true Wudang style will live on is through him.
Don’t think that this movie is rooted in our world. After all, Yun Fei Yang soon learns how to spin himself into a cocoon and emerge as a silver armored superhero who can shoot webs and emit blasts of energy. By the end, the final battle takes place inside his cocoon and it ends with the bad guy turned into a skeleton.
Based on a TV series, Reincarnated or The Transformation of the Heavenly Silkworm, this would be followed by a sequel, Return of the Bastard Swordsman.
Johnny Legend’s Untamed Video (August 25 – 31) Welcome to the wonderfully wacky world of Johnny Legend’s Untamed Video! Take a walk on the wild side with troublesome teenagers, sleazy sex kittens, way-out hippies, country bumpkins, big bad bikers, Mexican wrestlers, and every other variety of social deviant you can think of.
Jennie (Beverly Lunsford) is married to a man old enough to be if not her father, surely her older uncle, named Albert Peckingpaw (Jack Lester). But when Mario Dingle (Jim Reader) starts working on their farm, she suddenly decides to perhaps lying under a wrinkled elderly gent isn’t the life she wants. He catches them, drugs them and throws them in a hole while going off to dig their graves. The only person that can save them is sex worker Lulu Belle (Virginia Wood), who is heading out to meet Albert for a reason yet to be found out.
Originally titled Albert Peckingpaw’s Revenge and Tender Grass, this once-melodrama was recut by Robert Carl Cohen, who added in Lulu Belle, added the strip tease scene, threw in the silent movie title cards and made it sleazy, basically. It was nearly a different movie than what original director and writer James Landis (The Sadist) had in mind.
Making this work harder are the soundtrack by Davie Allan and the Arrows and cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond. What other hicksploitation sex scandal film has that?
“RIVER BOTTOM YOUNG STUFF! she’s hitched to an old-man-husband, and he’s got a young stiff for a hired man–it’s what you call a triangle!”
Johnny Legend’s Untamed Video (August 25 – 31) Welcome to the wonderfully wacky world of Johnny Legend’s Untamed Video! Take a walk on the wild side with troublesome teenagers, sleazy sex kittens, way-out hippies, country bumpkins, big bad bikers, Mexican wrestlers, and every other variety of social deviant you can think of.
I first watched this movie in the best of ways. On our weekly webcast, Drive-In Asylum, we had the great opportunity to have Bret McCormick, director of The Abomination, as a guest. This was the movie that he chose to watch with us.
Director, writer and producer John Parker started this film as a short and then expanded it. He had been inspired by a dream that his secretary, Adrienne Barrett, had and picked her to star in the film along with Bruno VeSota, who would go on to star in several Roger Corman films.
Barrett plays the Gamin, a young woman who wakes up from a nightmare to be in another one. Newspapers scream that there was a mysterious stabbing, men try to assault her only to be beaten into oblivion by police and a pimp buys her a flower, then asks her to accompany a rich man (Ve Sota) as she dreams back to stabbing her abusive father after he had shot and killed her mother.
After an evening touring the city’s bars and nightclubs, they enter his elegant apartment where he ignores her attempts at seduction as he gorges on a huge meal. He finally attempts to attack her and she stabs him with the same blade that murdered her father and he plummets to the street, holding her necklace in a death grip. She saws off his hand as people watch without caring and the same cop appears that saved her in the alley, only now with the face of her father as she runs away, clutching the severed hand.
The pimp comes back to pull her into a jazz club, soon followed by the cop and the dead body of the rich man, whose bloody stump points her out as his killer. The audience surrounds her, laughing, as she wakes up back where she began, in the hotel room. She goes to put on her necklace and finds that its being held by a severed hand.
Dementia was briefly released in 1953 before it was banned by the New York State Film Board, who deemed it “inhuman, indecent, and the quintessence of gruesomeness.” Perhaps that’s because it’s a movie that shows the violence and fear that women live with every day, but goes further to have a heroine who strikes back with the kind of strength that seperates a man’s body part. Today, this would be considered an art film, or maybe even elevated horror, but in the 1950s, the only genre it could fit into was horror. When it was re-released in 1955, theater employees submitted medical examinations of patrons to “heart specialists” who would assure the theatergoers that they would not be frightened to the point of death. One of the big reasons why the 1955 re-release was troubled was that some areas of the country weren’t ready for the interracial dancing in the jazz club.
Originally, Dementia has no dialogue and only sound effects and a score by composer George Antheil, with vocal effects by Marni Nixon and jazz musician Shorty Rogers and his band the Giants performing in the night club scene. Jack H. Harris, who had a habit of getting films and re-releasing them — Equinox, Dark Star — added narration by Ed McMahon and release it as Daughter of Horror.
When we showed this, Bret was worried that our audience would hate it. After all, The New York Daily News said, “The presentation, designed as a shocker, is enough to drive anybody crazy with alternate sessions of tedium and bedlam.” The good news is that it was received well, much like how Preston Sturges said, “It stirred my blood, purged my libido. The circuit was completed. The work was a work of art.”
Even if you haven’t seen this movie, you may have. It’s what’s playing in The Colonial Theater when The Blob attacks. And Faith No More used it as the inspiration for their video “Separation Anxiety.”
Supposedly, Aaron Spelling was one of the people in the nightclub. Did you see him?
The re-edit by Harris is strange to the ear, as you’re listening to the friendly voice of Carson’s sidekick saying things like, “Come with me into the tormented, haunted, half-lit night of the insane. This is my world. Let me lead you into it. Let me take you into the mind of a woman who is mad. You may not recognize some things in this world, and the faces will look strange to you. For this is a place where there is no love, no hope…in the pulsing, throbbing world of the insane mind, where only nightmares are real, nightmares of the Daughter of Horror!”
Johnny (Lee Chung-Ling) and Michael (Lin Wen-Wei) are on a holiday, ignoring that Johnny’s dad feels that he doesn’t know what responsibility is. His mother mentions how they all come from good families, so he’s safe to hang out with these friends. Little do they know that the boys are in a motorcycle gang.
Guo Jian-Zhong (Ling Yun) and his wife Chen Mei-Juan (Terry Lau Wai-Yue) have taken her sister Guo Ji-Lia (Kong San) to the beach house of her boyfriend Si Wei (Danny Lee). They’re not well-off and are just scraping by, but young and innocent and happy.
These two groups are going to meet and yes, bad things are going to happen.
Yes, Shaw Brothers made a biker movie and it was directed by Chih-Hung Kuei, the man that brought us so many insane journeys, like Corpse Mania and Curse of Evil.
The island is remote and only can be accessed by boat, so even the police aren’t here. As the gang and the two couples meet, at first it’s simple male catcalls to Guo Ji-Lia and her leather mini skirt. Soon, they are spraying graffiti all over their van, throwing ketchup at them and then tossing gigantic leeches. They lure the men away by attacking the house and when they are gone, assault both of them women, with one of them dying. Now, the film goes into Straw Dogs and beyond that to Last House On the Left, somehow inverting the inspiration with rich antagonists and working class heroes. In fact, it owes Peckinpah’s film so much that there’s even a scene of hot oil being used on the wealthy thugs.
This film proved to me that Argento doesn’t have a trademark on shoving a woman’s head through a glass window, that it can be really satisfying to watch a tractor mow through a rich biker, that setting traps in your house is always the best idea, that ending your movie in caps is the best — THERE IS NO RULE OF LAW THAT A KILLING WHICH RESULTS FROM THE USE OF EXCESSIVE FORCE IN SELF-DEFENCE IS ONLY MANSLAUGHTER; IF SUCH A KILLING IS DELIBERATE IT IS MURDER. — and that more movies should have spearguns being fired at punks.
Also: This movie is total exploitation to the point that somehow, an escort company has placed a review on Letterboxd which is a wild business plan.
Based on Gu Long’s Before and After the Duel, the third installment in the Lu Xiaofeng series, this was directed by Chor Yuen. Just as the title states, this is about the sword fight between Ye Gucheng (Jason Pai) and Ximen Chuixue (Elliot Ngok), which will be to the death on the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival. Once friends, no one knows why they are engaging in such a battle and when Ximen postpones the duel, Lu Xiaofeng (Tony Liu) and his fellow martial artists Sikong Zhaixing (Lung Ting-sang), Hermit Pine (Shum Lo), Hua Manlou (Sun Chien) and Monk Honest (Walter Tso) decide to learn the why.
That takes them to gambling dens, to rumors of revenge, to finding out that Ye may have been poisoned and that his wife, Leng Qingqiu (Ching Li), has grown ill. Strange still, only Ximen can heal Ye from his affliction, but will he?
Which technique is stronger? Wavering Sword or Floating Goddess? While the story that gets you there is long and wandering, at least Lu Xiaofeng is one cool hero. He’s nearly unstoppable with a sword and he has no issue telling those he fights exactly that. There are so many people with something to lose in this bet between two men, but when honor is in danger of being lost, that’s when both will have to put their life on the line.
VCI and MVD have released both the original TV movie — which Donald Guarisco says is “…one of the best made-for-television horror films ever made!”– on 4K UHD and blu ray as a set. Extras include a Dark Night of the Scarecrow commentary by Heath Holland of Cereal at Midnight, Robert Kelly and Amanda Reyes; another commentary track for the original film by J.D. Feigelson and Frank DeFelitta; a commentary on the sequel by Feigelson; a featurette on the original film; a cast reunion; two CBS commercials and a behind-the-scenes gallery. You can get it on blu ray or 4K UHD from MVD.
Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981): Originally airing on October 24, 1981, Dark Night of the Scarecrow was directed by Frank De Felitta, who wrote Audrey Rose and TheEntity. It was originally intended to be an independent film, but was bought by CBS.
Somewhere in the Deep South, a mentally challenged giant named Charles Eliot “Bubba” Ritter (Larry Drake) becomes friends with a young girl named Marylee Williams. This being a small town, people start to talk, with postman Otis Hazelrigg (Charles Durning) being the loudest of them.
When Bubba saves Marylee from a dog attack, Otis believes that the simple man really caused the damage. He gathers a posse to hunt him down, but Bubba’s mom has hidden him in the field as a scarecrow. But that doesn’t stop bloodhounds from finding him and the four men form a firing squad, killing the man with no trial.
Of course, Marylee is alive and Bubba should be the hero, but the four men lie in court, claiming he tried to kill them with a pitchfork. Marylee refuses to believe her friend is gone and slowly, the rest of town discovers that she might be right, as the scarecrow keeps showing up to frighten the guilty men.
Otis knows he’s guilty and believes that Bubba’s mom is behind all of this, so he tries to intimidate her. She is so shocked by him that she has a heart attack and he sets her home on fire. He starts wiping out everyone who could connect him of the crime before finally coming after Marylee.
I love how this film ends, with Otis running from a plowing machine and the very tool that he used to blame Bubba being part of his demise. Does Bubba return? I also really love that the film kind of leaves that decision up to you.
Bonus: You can listen to us discuss this on our podcast.
Dark Night of the Scarecrow 2 (2022): J.D. Feigelson wrote the screenplay for the TV movie Dark Night of the Scarecrow more than forty years ago and now, it’s finally time for a sequel. This time, he both directed and wrote the film, whereas the original was directed by Frank De Felitta (the writer of Z.P.G., Audrey Rose, The Entity, Scissors and more, as well as the director of Killer in the Mirror, Trapped and The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan).
Can it measure up to a film that many see as a true classic?
Chris Rhymer (Amber Wedding) and her young son Jeremy (Aiden Shurr) have recently moved to a small town in Stubblefield County. Their very arrival is a mystery to the close-knit town; after all why would someone move from the big city to their little town and be content to work in a country store?
While Chris tries to build a new life, Jeremy grows closer to the older woman who watches him after school every day named Aunt Hildie (Carol Dines) and also begins speaking to an imaginary friend that he refers to as Bubba. Chris is losing track of everything in her life and finds herself confiding in the worn scarecrow in the field, telling it all the secrets of her life while placing a flower in its lapel, a flower that’s returned to her as she sleeps.
Meanwhile, it turns out that Hildie is using Jeremy to reach the spirit hidden within the scarecrow, just as Chris’ past comes back with tragic results, as it turns out that Chris was in witness protection and she’s been found.
Unfortunately, while the movie attempts to remind us of the first film, it in no way can match it or even add to it. Whereas the original only hinted that perhaps something supernatural was happening, the sequel fully invests in the idea that Bubba is inside the scarecrow. I don’t expect that past cast to come back — most of them died in that film and are also sadly no longer with us — but I have such a strong feeling and adoration for the original that this feels like an unwanted hanger-on.
I wanted to love this movie. Sadly, it fell quite far from the mark. It may have had a lower budget than the 1981 TV movie. I tried not to judge it against that film, but as I said, it’s a classic, a TV film that makes the most of its budget with effective filmmaking and assured direction.
Captain Donnie Yan (Donnie Yen) and Madam Rachel Yeung Lai-ching (Cynthia Khan) are on the trail of cocaine dealers. When she goes off script and gets found by a dockworker named Luk Wan-ting (Yuen Yat-chor) who thinks that she’s an illegal immigrant. He feels bad for her and gives her money and a place to say. As Donnie stays after the criminals, she learns that Luk’s brother Ming (Liu Kai-chi) is being attacked by criminals that he owes money to. The two fight off the gang and when her cover’s blown, Rachel gets back on the case. At the same time, their partner Peter Woods gets shotgun blasted by the real boss behind all of the drug deals is a CIA officer named Mr. Robinson.
I’ve just explained about the first ten minutes or so of this dense film, one that builds tension and then goes as wild as any of the other movies in this series.
Luk Wan-Ting is a witness to that murder and gets framed for it. He escapes the police and a killer, which sends our heroes after him. She thinks he’s innocent based on their past history and he thinks that he’s not, so we have some tension between our supercops. In fact, things get even tenser when they start to wonder which cops they can trust and decide to hide out with Luk and attempt to get him to testify.
The final fights in this film — once the plot is solved and we can, as they say, get to the fireworks factory — are incredible. The battle between the CIA agent (Michael Woods) and Yen on top of a building has more action than every movie that will come out of Hollywood this year. There’s also a great battle between Khan and karate champion Farlie Ruth Kordica that has the two falling from huge heights and kicking each other repeatedly. Also: if you like glass being broken — I do — this movie will give you all the shattering and smashing of glass that you can handle.
Director Yuen Woo-ping is a name you should already know but if you don’t, he’s the director of Drunken Master, Tiger Cage, Iron Monkeyand so many more movies. He also was the fight choreographer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Fist of Legend, Black Mask, the second and third Matrix and Kill Bill 1 and 2. Seeing his name means that you’re about to have your mind absolutely blown.
88 Films’ reissue of In the Line of Duty 4 has the option of watching the movie in Cantonese and two different English dubs, as well as extras like a commentary by F.J. DeSanto, an interview with Donnie Yen and trailers. There’s also a gorgeous book and posters for each movie. You can buy the set from MVD.
Rachel Yeung (Cynthia Khan) wants to be a tough policewoman, but her uncle (Paul Chun) is her superior and he keeps her out of the line of fire. When a fashion show is interrupted by two thieves working for the Red Army — Nakamura Genji (Stuart Ong) and Michiko Nishiwaki (Michiko Nishiwaki) — and nearly the entire audience is killed, including the partner of Inspector Otaka (Hiroshi Fukioka), his path of revenge brings the two together. She’s an incredible martial artist; he’s a cop that refuses to follow the rules, causing damage to everything around him in his obsessive quest for justice.
In 79 minutes, we get near non-stop death and destruction, an evil couple who really love each other even though he’s dying from an inoperable disease and two closing fights: Otaka battling Genji with pipes and hooks and Rachel fighting both Nishiwaki and her henchman (Dick Wei).
Cynthia Khan may not be Michelle Yeoh, but she works really hard in this. She was a dancer before becoming an actor and her athleticism comes in handy, even if she’s doubled in the final fight. Man, I could watch as many of these movies as they chose to make.
88 Films’ In the Line of Duty 3 blu ray is a re-release of the film that they had out last year in the out of print box set. This film has the option of Cantonese and two different English dubs and extras like a commentary by Frank Djeng and Michael Worth, an interview with John Sham by Frederic Ambroisine and trailers. You can buy it from MVD.
Johnny Legend’s Untamed Video (August 25 – 31) Welcome to the wonderfully wacky world of Johnny Legend’s Untamed Video! Take a walk on the wild side with troublesome teenagers, sleazy sex kittens, way-out hippies, country bumpkins, big bad bikers, Mexican wrestlers, and every other variety of social deviant you can think of.
Filmed as Blood Money, this was a double feature as High School Big Shot as the first double feature release — with T-Bird Gang — for Roger Corman’s Filmgroup.
Marv Grant (Pittman) has a pretty desperate life. His father (Malcolm Atterbury) is an abusive drunk, his girl Betty Alexander (Virginia Aldridge) was using him because he would write her essays and when he gets caught, his teacher not only fails her, he also ruins Marv’s chance of getting a scholarship. Then, Betty leaves him and goes back to her real boyfriend, Vince (Howard Veit).
He also has a dead end job on the docks, where he learns that his boss is running a million dollar heroin deal. He decides to work with safecracker Harry March (Stanley Adams) and brother-in-law Sam Tolman (Louis Quinn) to take the cash, which he hops can get his dad off the sauce and win back Betty. He tells her the plan and she gets Vince involved to steal all the money.
This all ends in the most depressing way possible. Marv’s father kills himself, Vince shoots and kills Sam, Betty shows up only for Vince to kill her and then the real criminals show up and shoot up Vince before the cops arrest everyone, even Marv. Some high school big shot he ended up being.
Director and writer Joel Rapp also shot The Battle of Blood Island before a career in TV.
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